The Energon Pub

TV.com is report that, in a move that is likely to surprise no one here, Cartoon Network is apparently expanding its live-action offerings.

http://www.tv.com/story/13415.html?tag=topslot;button;

Cable station no longer living up to its name, will get in to live-action reality shows, scripted programs.

Ben 10 going live action!
First MTV stops showing music videos, now this? Cartoon Network is sticking with the "Network" portion of its name, but ditching the strictly "Cartoon" bit, the company announced today. Nineteen new projects were announced, and less than half will be hand-drawn.

"These exciting new projects represent the next phase in Cartoon Network's ambitious, ongoing strategy to re-invent the network and re-energize our youth business overall," said Stuart Snyder.

These new non-cartoons will start airing in the coming 2009-2010 season and feature reality and scripted programs, most of which sound like pint-sized versions of programs currently airing on other networks.

Highlights: The Othersiders is a mini-Ghost Hunters, with five friends exploring scary places; Destroy Build Destroy is like Human Wrecking Balls, with two teams blowing stuff up; Dude, What Would Happen is a Mythbusters clone; Bobb'e Says takes the ridiculously funny child actor Bobb'e J. Thompson (Human Giant, Role Models) in his own take of America's Funniest Home Videos.

Also announced was a live-action Ben 10: Alien Force movie, a Scooby-Doo! prequel telefilm, and a full CG movie titled Firebreather!

Don't worry all you glassy-eyed college students--it doesn't look like the late-night Adult Swim block will be affected by any of this.

This is one of the reasons why I no longer have cable.

All you half to do is watch the adds on cartoon network to see that there going to live action shows. So far they have had adds for a live action version of when shaggy and the gang met scooby doo as well as several other shows not the least of which is ben 10 alien force. I mean even adult swim is getting more live action shows and the reason behind this is because it is cheaper than doing hand drawn animation. Heck most of these shows have already been on in other countries and cartoon network is only now picking them up. I think it sucks but what can you do.

meh Cn hasn't been good sence the late 90's

I'm not surprised by this. But this contradicts the title of the channel. Live action does not mean cartoon. Who the heck is making these choices over there?

If they really want to save money, keep TF:Animated, Tom and Jerry, Venture Bros, and keep the anime block on Saturday. Bring back Looney Tunes, Duck Dodgers, Hanna Barbera shorts, the 80's episodes of The Jetsons since they only show the earlier episodes on Boomerang. Heck in it's earliest years, CN was a hit by just showing re-runs.

Once we get out of the economic rut and get going full swing, we really need to stop trying to penny pinch wherever we can beause that never gave us quality.

Roadbuster wrote:I'm not surprised by this. But this contradicts the title of the channel. Live action does not mean cartoon. Who the heck is making these choices over there?

More then likely the same people that think The Hills or The Real World belong on a channel called MUSIC Television. Granted, I do watch Rob and Big and Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory on MTV(and MTV2), but god damn bring back the original concept!

At least they aren't changing their name to something stupid like SyFy...oh wait, SciFi is doing that...

Oh, excellent. Nice work, Cartoon Network.

I'm not sure, but then again it's early and I was up half the night failing students on midterms, but it seems to me that of all the networks least in need of a redesign, it's Cartoon Network. I mean, broadcast television has entirely ceded cartoons to them--look for any children's programming on the Big Four in the afternoons. You won't find any. Saturday morning has also been entirely surrendered.

If Cartoon Network's ratings are slipping, it might be because their latest buys *suck* and the few good shows they have they rerun until it's no longer even remotely funny. I kind of like Chowder, to be honest, (hey, don't hate!) but 6teen is entirely unwatchable by anyone who doesn't have to rub their head against a wool carpet to get their brains to synapse.

Someone here already said it: CN's heyday was in the late 90s. Know what they did? Had an action block of cartoons in the mid/late afternoon. Featuring Transformers and DBZ.

Now, they get a TF cartoon and when do they rerun? Six am?

Whoever's running the network is a bunch of idiots. If they weren't my only source of TF cartoons I'd be happy to watch them self-destruct in a giant ball of bankruptcy flames.

HK, getting the marshmallows.

I highly doubt this change is going to make their ratings fall any. If anything they'll market it right and make their ratings go up.

Network. Formerly known as Cartoon.



I don't have an opinion as I don't have that channel, I have TeleToon because I'm in Canada.

This is funny and yet sad news...sorry for your loss Americans.

Not too much of a surprise. I think they've been showing live action movies for awhile anyway, so this is just the next step. Only thing I watch on there anymore though is TF: Animated and Brave and the Bold(though I usually forget and catch the reruns). I tried Clone Wars, and while it is pretty decent, I'll probably just get the whole series on DVD someday.

Also, about B&B, they rerun that show a LOT. Twice a day on weekdays, and they only have a handful of episodes, like 14 now I think.

Mind you, I stopped watching long before they even canned Toonami. This switch is no surprise.

I stopped watching CN regularly before Toonami was canceled, but I'd still try to watch Action Flix if it was something I wanted to see. (Like Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker)

I still watch Adult Swim, though. Robot Chicken, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Venture Brothers (Though I hear that's ending), Superjail, Squidbillies, Metalocalypse, Boondocks, and all that anime.

Agent 007 wrote:meh Cn hasn't been good since the late 90's

quoted for truth.

Psycho Warrior wrote:

Agent 007 wrote:meh Cn hasn't been good since the late 90's

quoted for truth.

I remember when Fox had their own saturday cartoons. And im sure most of you remember when they aired cartoons on in the morning and after school on weeddays and even they even aired cartoons on sundays 2. Now all u get is crummy cartoons only on saturday with the exception of the new ninja turtles cartoon.

The WB had awesone blocks of cartoons in the morning afternoons and weekends. Now they dont exist at all and i havent really watched what that network that took over has to offer for cartoons.

Its like cartoons are endangered species! The only cartoons that keep coming steadily are animes, (not sure what is good post naruto dont watch much anime cartoons on tv no more) and "mature" cartoons like Metalocalypse, South Park, Family Guy, that show about gay lego people, Morel Oral, Frisky Dingo and many more new or current shows.

fox doesn't even have weekend cartoons anymore. cbs shows like an hour from 7-8 on saturday, abc shows live action crap like hanna montana, suite life of zach and cody, and the new crappy power rangers.

kids wb stopped showing the good cartoons like batman, spiderman, and legion of super heroes, in place of chaotic. wtf?

saturday morning cartoons are now only allowed to be about whatever game randomly showed up, and now kids gotta collect it to save the world from some mysterious force.

More cynicism from yours truly:

It's all money. Back in the late seventies early 80s when cartoons absolutely *sucked* as cartoons (say, Speed Racer, Smurfs, etc), they were the demographic draw for advertisers. The commercials shown during breaks in these cartoons were all about toys. Simple appeal to simple audience.

Mid 80s, the rules changed and toy manufacturers could 'sponsor' or create a show--such as Hasbro with Transformers. Nowadays, just about every kids' show on TV has some representation in Toys R Us. Yes, even iCarly. (And do NOT get me started on Hannah Montana--why do I want to be able to buy underpants with her *face* on them?!) This basically means that, say, Bakugan or TFA can be considered a 30 minute commercial for those toys. Following on that, advertisers for other products fear the competition--can their 30 second spot compete with 22 minutes of show/advertising?

Don't believe me? Watch some kids' TV and look at what's advertised.

Add to that that cartoons are getting more expensive to make. Even if you don't go CGI, the audience (you and me) expects some considerable visual sophistication now. Go watch an early Speed Racer and see what you think of that animation style--it's almost unwatchable by modern standards (or, at least, unwatchable whilst sober). And let's admit that bashing the CGI of Season One Beast Wars is almost a Transfan National Sport.

It makes me feel like CN fought to win some sort of monopoly--as y'all have noted, most other networks have given up Saturday and weekday afternoon cartoons entirely--and now that they've won, they figure they can do whatever they want because it's them or nothing.

HK, who had the Chowder "I'm not your boyfriend" song stuck in her head for a week.

hellkitty wrote:(And do NOT get me started on Hannah Montana--why do I want to be able to buy underpants with her *face* on them?!)

Obvious answer is very, very humoriously obvious.

hellkitty wrote:Don't believe me? Watch some kids' TV and look at what's advertised.

We've all known the shows were only meant to sell toys for many years now. So, yeah, we believe you.

Really It doesn't surprise me in the least.

A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE

As most people on this site is aware, Canada doesn't have Cartoon Network, nor do we have Nickelodeon, The Disney Channel, SyFi or other specialty cable networks. (sure we have the food network, Discovery, TLC, and others but they are watered down with Canadian shows and just share the name and logos)

What in exchange we have is YTV (youth television), Teletoon, and SPACE. Neither YTV or Teletoon have ever subscribed to the idea of strictly animated programming because they know it can be a deadend when programming trends go in different directions and they can change without having to alter the core specialty basis of the station name.

All they are doing moving the basis of CN away from a completly animated line-up is showing the shortsightedness of giving the network a name that limits them to what their programming is expected to be.

I wish they'd go back to the old days when Outlaw Star and Gundam were on after school none of the cartoons were mindless. All we have now is crap. Ben 10 is okay, but it's a far cry from some of the other series CN aired.

All good things must end I guess. I just hope their rating plummet with all the live action crap they're going to play.

Do they really think that they need new cartoons? I guarantee that if they played Outlaw Star again kids would in awe. I wouldn't mind repeats of Gundam Wing and G too. Tenchi and Trigun would also be awesome. It wouldn't take much to edit Trigun either and Tenchi along with Outlaw Star already have the edits as well.

As everyone else said, it was stupid on their part to place all the good shows at stupid times. I've never seen AEC the whole way through. Only bits and pieces.

Well at least we will have Boomerang

robofreak wrote:All good things must end I guess. I just hope their rating plummet with all the live action crap they're going to play.

Yes, lets hope the channel we get Transformers from fails.

robofreak wrote:Do they really think that they need new cartoons?

Of course they need new cartoons, because old ones end eventually, and reruns get boring. A network doesn't exactly do well if it never introduces new programming.

Shadowman wrote:

robofreak wrote:All good things must end I guess. I just hope their rating plummet with all the live action crap they're going to play.

Yes, lets hope the channel we get Transformers from fails.

robofreak wrote:Do they really think that they need new cartoons?

Of course they need new cartoons, because old ones end eventually, and reruns get boring. A network doesn't exactly do well if it never introduces new programming.

I should have made my post a little more in depth. I meant cartoons that aren't mindless. Lately, all I hear is yelling and screaming with no real plot. If the cartoons were actually decent then I'd be all for new stuff.

If rating drop, then CN will realize that cartoons are better. Thus dropping the live action stuff and bringing back decent cartoons. I know that idea is flawed and still needs some work. I'm just irritated that one of my favorite networks growing up is barely a shadow of what it once was.

Didn't they try a couple of live-action series that eventually flopped?

Probably because they were of the same quality as some of their animated shows.

robofreak wrote:

Shadowman wrote:

robofreak wrote:All good things must end I guess. I just hope their rating plummet with all the live action crap they're going to play.

Yes, lets hope the channel we get Transformers from fails.

robofreak wrote:Do they really think that they need new cartoons?

Of course they need new cartoons, because old ones end eventually, and reruns get boring. A network doesn't exactly do well if it never introduces new programming.

I should have made my post a little more in depth. I meant cartoons that aren't mindless. Lately, all I hear is yelling and screaming with no real plot. If the cartoons were actually decent then I'd be all for new stuff.

If rating drop, then CN will realize that cartoons are better. Thus dropping the live action stuff and bringing back decent cartoons. I know that idea is flawed and still needs some work. I'm just irritated that one of my favorite networks growing up is barely a shadow of what it once was.

To be fair, the number of American-made cartoons in the past thirty years with substantial plot is staggeringly low. And Hasbro did not help in that regard. (Poor poor Mattel. The 2003 MOTU series had so much potential)

All that's left is Anime, and you can only bring over so much of that at once, and even so, there's only a few series at any given time that don't need severe butchering.

Archanubis wrote:Didn't they try a couple of live-action series that eventually flopped?

Probably because they were of the same quality as some of their animated shows.

I think one or two. But then nothing on Cartoon Network concerns me until Adult Swim start anyway.